


Parallel

by AirgiodSLV



Series: 28 Lotrips AUs Challenge [26]
Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-13
Updated: 2006-05-13
Packaged: 2019-07-20 12:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16137518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: “Hey, it’s okay,” Dom promised, standing up and wrapping an arm around Elijah’s shoulders with evident concern. “Look, I’ll take you downtown and we’ll find a place for you to stay for the night. You can come back here in the morning and we’ll sort this out. Okay?”





	Parallel

**Author's Note:**

> AU #11, for [](https://telesilla.livejournal.com/profile)[telesilla](https://telesilla.livejournal.com/)

Elijah stumbled back from Wellington to the primary filming location with no memory of what he’d been doing there. He wasn’t drunk, or at least he didn’t think so; there was alcohol on his breath and his mind was hazy, but his body was completely under his control and he didn’t feel euphoric. But there was definitely something wrong with him.

He wondered if someone had slipped him a knockout drug while he wasn’t paying attention, and the thought made him shiver and walk a little faster, eager to be out of the lengthening shadows. He remembered a few things; a dark face with smiling white teeth, a martini glass, a spinning wooden disk on a countertop. Nothing that made any sense.

He reached the perimeter and was confused to see cars still in the lot. Was someone still shooting? Maybe they were working with the extras, he couldn’t imagine being released for the day before anyone else. The evening security guard – Joe? Martin? – stopped him and Elijah nodded, reaching to dig through his wallet. The guards usually recognized him and let him through, but he wasn’t exactly feeling like himself right now, and maybe they were just being careful.

His wallet was gone. He groaned, rubbing his forehead with his hand, and looked up apologetically. Now he knew why someone must have slipped him something, and he made a mental note to tell Pete that his security access badge had been stolen, so they could distribute new ones.

“My wallet’s gone,” he told the guard. “I don’t have any ID, can you just let me through today?”

The guard frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one is allowed on the premises without proper authorization. Do you have someone who can vouch for you?”

Elijah blinked, a bit taken aback. He liked to think he wasn’t spoiled by star treatment, but he’d certainly never been held up by a guard at a film site before. “Yeah, anyone,” he said, trying to come up with names of people that weren’t likely to be missed if pulled away, but who still had clearance high enough to be recognizable. “Any of the cast,” he admitted, chewing a thumbnail. They were allowed to bring guests in, the guys wouldn’t even need to vouch for him as Frodo, although it seemed a little ridiculous to go that route. “Fran, Philippa, Pete. The makeup girls in the hobbit trailer.”

The guard frowned a little and reached for his radio, but as he did Elijah caught sight – he heard them first, their voices clear and carrying – of Dom and Billy, arms wrapped over each other’s shoulders and laughing as they headed towards the parking lot.

“Hang on,” Elijah interrupted. “Dom and Billy are right there, I’ll just ask them. Dom!” he called, and two tousled heads swiveled curiously in his direction.

“Could you come over here please, gentlemen?” the guard requested, and they trotted over amiably enough, but neither of them gave him more than a brief, mildly interested look, their attention fixed on the guard. They probably couldn’t believe he’d be stupid enough to lose his wallet and be held up by a guard, Elijah thought cynically.

“Do either of you know this man? He claims to know you, but I can’t let him through without a badge unless one of you says it’s all right.” Dom and Billy turned to him in unison at the guard’s words, looking him over.

“I can’t…sorry, I don’t remember,” Billy said, seeming apologetic about it. “Did we meet you in the bar the other night? What’s your name?”

Elijah’s mouth went dry, but he held in the panic, and tried to laugh it off weakly. “Come on, guys, this isn’t funny,” he insisted. “Please, I just need to…I have to tell Pete, seriously, my wallet was stolen and you know how he is about security breaches.”

Billy shrugged sympathetically. “I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t remember you. There should be others coming out any minute, though…hey! Frodo!”

Elijah’s head snapped up, following Billy’s gaze…as Tobey Maguire strolled up to join them, looking less interested than indifferent. “What is it?” he asked, casting a curious glance over Elijah.

“This guy says he knows us, wants to get in and talk to Peter, but he doesn’t have his badge,” Billy explained, and Elijah’s tenuous hold on sanity snapped.

“Guys, cut it out, and I seriously mean it, this isn’t funny,” he said, trying hard not to sound plaintive, but about to fall completely into misery. “I’ve had a rough fucking night and I’m sorry, but I can’t take a joke right now, okay? Ha ha, all right, I’ve been robbed and probably drugged tonight, and I’m just…done.” He turned to Dom, rubbing a hand briefly over his eyes. “Take me home, please? I don’t think I should drive.”

Dom looked at him as if he’d grown two heads, and the frustration Elijah had been feeling began to sink into something heavy and knotted into his stomach. “Hey,” Dom said guiltily, reaching out a hand towards Elijah. “I’m really sorry, mate, I don’t recognize you. But don’t worry, we’ll get this sorted out…”

“I’m Elijah,” he screamed, panic making his heart pound faster as he stared at them and saw no recognition, not even a flicker of smug amusement at making him lose his cool with their practical joke. “Elijah fucking Wood, now stop it, I’ve had enough!”

All of them took a step back but the guard, who now had one hand on the holstered butt of his gun. “Sir,” he began calmly, but Dom waved him off, eyes bright and interested.

“Elijah Wood? The child star, Elijah Wood?” His eyes roamed over Elijah’s face, and he whistled. “You could be, too, I’ve seen some of your films…you’ve got the eyes, he was famous for that.”

Elijah’s throat was dry and his head hurt, worse than ever. “Dom,” he whispered, trying to convey how very tired he was so that Dom would crack and take him home, and make him dinner, and maybe even join him for a shower before they went to bed. He felt filthy and worn thin, like old fabric, and he just wanted to go home.

Dom was shaking his head in amazement. “What is it?” Billy asked, frowning. Dom just stared at Elijah, in a way that he had never seen before, and never wanted to again.

“Mate,” Dom said slowly. “Elijah Wood is dead.”

Elijah’s head felt as if it were floating away, disconnected and vague, and in his mind he saw the wooden coin again, spinning and spinning, and bright white teeth as someone laughed. Over the roar in his ears, Dom continued speaking. “Plane crash when he was young, everybody said it was such a shame. Who are you really?”

“Dom,” Elijah begged, legs trembling and threatening not to hold him up. “Dom, God, Dom, please…”

Tobey opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment Dom said, “Got his whole family, his mum and a sister, I think, or maybe a brother…big news at the time…” and Elijah’s legs gave out, pitching him gracelessly onto the pavement.

“Mark, call the medic,” an unfamiliar – Tobey? – voice said, and he heard the guard – Mark, that was it, Mark – talking on his radio, but the world was hot and cold and he didn’t want to open his eyes, because if he did he’d have to see the blank look on Dom’s face where there should be something else entirely.

There were other voices now, the longer Elijah stayed down, and finally Jenn was there with her kit, telling him to look at the light, please, and asking him questions about what he had been doing and how he was feeling. He felt like crap, but she didn’t have any pills for that, so he didn’t tell her. Yes, he’d been drinking. No, he couldn’t remember…anything. Anything beyond filming, what must have been this morning, and going into town…why had he gone into town?

“Maybe we should take him to see Pete,” Dom was murmuring. “At least they can check his fingerprints, see who he is and where he’s come from…maybe one of the mental facilities, someone’s got to be missing him…” Elijah closed his eyes tighter and tried not to hear.

“I’ll take care of it,” Mark said, helping Elijah off of the ground and still keeping one hand on his gun, making Elijah’s stomach ache. “You gentlemen have a good evening.”

They hesitated briefly, and suddenly Elijah realized that Dom was about to leave, and if they locked him away somewhere, if this was all some kind of nightmarish twilight zone episode, he would never see Dom again. “No,” he begged, jerking out of Mark’s grip and hurling himself at Dom. “Don’t leave me, Dom, please, stay with me, I need you.”

Dom’s eyes were wide and shocked, but he let Elijah hold his arm and shook his head when Mark looked ready to intervene. “I can prove it,” Elijah swore, not knowing how yet, but certain that he could…how could he have shared more than a year with these people and not be able to prove it? “Just give me a chance, Dom, please.”

Everyone else looked unhappy, but Dom’s eyes stayed connected with his, studying and weighing. Finally Dom nodded, and Elijah nearly went limp with relief. “I’ll stay,” Dom told Mark. “Let’s go see what we can sort out.”

Elijah started to thank him, but Billy’s mouth set in a hard, unfamiliar line and he jerked Dom away, back a couple of paces. He clearly meant the conversation to be private, but Elijah had no trouble hearing the hissed words. “Have you ever had a stalker, Dom? Do you realize that’s exactly what he acts like? I’m not letting you…”

“He wants me,” Dom interrupted, and the hand he placed on Billy’s shoulder was gentle, but his tone was firm. “Not you, not an obvious target like Viggo or Ian or Tobey. He asked for me.”

Billy cast one last look in Elijah’s direction, half-threatening, half-resigned. “Fine,” he said shortly. “Call me when you get home.”

Tobey was watching him, Elijah realized. Tobey was gazing at him in a way that was highly unsettling, and he sidestepped a little closer to Mark without thinking about it, moving towards protection. He didn’t know Tobey; this was the only unknown quantity in all of New Zealand, the only significant change he’d seen. Someone else in his place. Someone who watched him as if he knew that Elijah wanted him gone, so that everything could be back to normal.

“Come on,” Mark said, breaking their silent staring contest. “Let’s get you to the security station.”

* * *

His fingerprints came back Elijah Wood, deceased, which made everyone look at him in consternation while they tried to figure out what to do next. Exhumation was discussed briefly, a topic Elijah closed by burying his head in his hands and rocking, begging, “I can’t, please, don’t,” and the subject was dropped.

“It’s getting late,” Mark said finally. “I think you should stay here or go to the Wellington police, but I don’t know how you would file, honestly. We don’t have any reason to hold you here.”

Elijah couldn’t think about anything beyond sleep, still believing in his heart that this was a dream, that he’d wake up in the morning and everything would be back to normal. “I’m going home,” he declared, standing up. “If you need me, call me there.”

Then he stopped suddenly, shocked by the realization that he had no home anymore, not in L.A. and not here, that there was nowhere for him to go.

Mark seemed to understand the same thing. “Where do you live?” he asked gently, and Elijah swallowed.

“2553 Rosewood,” he answered, closing his eyes because he didn’t really want to hear that there was someone else in his place, eating from his dishes and making a mess in the living room.

“Tobey’s place,” Dom murmured, and Elijah made a little sound in his throat that he didn’t intend, something like a choked whimper, a strangled laugh through tears.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Dom promised, standing up and wrapping an arm around Elijah’s shoulders with evident concern. “Look, I’ll take you downtown and we’ll find a place for you to stay for the night. You can come back here in the morning and we’ll sort this out. Okay?”

Elijah nodded, and they made their way out to the parking lot in silence with Mark’s permission, even if his support of the idea seemed reluctant. Mark probably thought he was a crazy stalker, just like Billy, Elijah thought, and depression seemed to push down on him like a low ceiling, crushing him a little at a time. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take before they really _would_ have to lock him up as a nutter.

Elijah walked straight to Dom’s car without pause, and only realized once he reached it that Dom had stopped some ways back and was watching him in silence. “What?” he asked, confused.

“That’s my car,” Dom said as if that would explain things, and he walked the rest of the way over to the driver’s side before stopping, gazing at Elijah over the hood. “You really do remember being in this movie, don’t you?” he asked quietly. “All of this. You remember being our friend.”

Elijah swallowed around the lump in his throat, staring into Dom’s eyes. He knew Dom’s eyes as well as his own, saw them every morning when he woke up and had for months. But they were different, now. The warmth, the soft glimmer they usually held when Dom looked at him wasn’t there. “Yes,” he said quietly.

Dom mulled his answer over for a bit, and then asked, “What’s in my CD player right now?”

Elijah hesitated, thinking back to that morning. When he remembered he almost smiled, but it seemed incongruous with the way he felt right now. “It’s labeled ‘Kripke’, who you claim is a Hungarian rock group,” he answered steadily. “But it’s really Britney Spears.”

Dom’s eyes widened, and he unlocked the car without a word. Elijah waited until Dom had the door open before getting in himself, fastening his seatbelt and waiting while Dom stared out the windshield.

“No one knows that,” Dom said finally. “About that disc, I mean. Not even Bill.” Elijah didn’t know what to say, so he kept silent. A moment later Dom turned to him, eyes dark and serious.

“We weren’t just friends, were we?” he asked, searching Elijah’s face. “You picked me for a reason.”

Elijah swallowed again, throat dry. “No,” he answered softly. “We weren’t just friends.”

Dom was silent for a long, terrifying moment. “Do you want to come home with me?” he asked finally, and Elijah’s hands started shaking. He nodded, the motion jerky, and Dom started the car.

They drove home in silence; Dom lost in one of his deep-thinking reveries, Elijah chewing his nails and trying hard not to think about anything at all. When they drove past the intersection of Dom’s street Elijah murmured without thinking, “You missed the turn,” and Dom circled the block without commenting.

Dom let him into the house and leaned back against the door. “You’ve been here before,” he said slowly. “In your head, I mean. Can you find the lights?”

Elijah stared at him, taken off-guard by this sudden test, but he went to each of the lamps in turn, ignoring the switch that he knew was wired to the stereo rather than the lightbulbs. Dom watched him and Elijah folded his arms across his chest, waiting for the next challenge.

“Silverware,” Dom said, and Elijah went into the kitchen and pulled out the drawer. “Matches. Biscuits. Spatula.”

Elijah stopped on the last one, drawer open and full of saran wrap and odds and ends. “It’s not here,” he whispered, and his eyes were filling with tears because this was suddenly all he could take, the last straw. “It’s not here…because I moved it, when I started living here more than at my place, I told you I could never find it and you said what did it matter, I never cooked anyway…”

The memory of Dom’s grin as he’d teased Elijah overwhelmed him, and he hid his face behind his hands, stifling a sob. Dom’s arms were suddenly around him, warm and strong, and he murmured soothing nonsense into Elijah’s ear as Elijah choked back the tears and tried to pretend that everything was all right.

“Take me to bed,” Elijah whispered finally, his voice hoarse and scratchy. “Please.”

Dom looked troubled when he met Elijah’s eyes, reluctant. “We don’t have to,” he said. “If you don’t want to…I mean, I don’t expect…”

Elijah turned and kissed him, with more desperation than finesse. “I need you,” he said softly, and then Dom was the one to kiss him, his big hands cradling Elijah’s face.

It was an awkward kiss, and Elijah didn’t want to think about how strange it was, the way Dom’s lips didn’t automatically know the angle to catch his, the way Dom’s tongue waited for him instead of slipping in first to tease Elijah’s. He grabbed onto Dom’s shirt and threw himself into it, and Dom’s arms went around him with slowly-growing urgency, guiding him back towards the bedroom.

Dom tried to slow him down when Elijah stripped off their clothes, to stop him when Elijah sank to his knees. “Let me,” Elijah begged, and when Dom hesitated he surged forward, his tongue curling around the head of Dom’s cock and squeezing until he heard a low groan.

Elijah slid down and up, using all of the tricks he knew that Dom liked, and from the sounds of it Dom was having difficulty holding on, his hand buried in Elijah’s hair. Elijah slipped the tip of his tongue into Dom’s slit and wiggled it, and Dom jerked forward abruptly, pulling back when Elijah choked, swearing.

“Where the fuck did you…?” he asked, voice high with disbelief, and Elijah coughed, eyes watering, looking up from his knees like a penitent.

“You taught me,” he answered, and Dom stood silent for a long moment before pulling Elijah up off the floor into his arms.

“Bed,” he murmured, and Elijah followed him gladly, needing the small comfort of this, even if it was false. Dom held him gently and it ached every time he didn’t know to touch Elijah just _there,_ or kiss him in _that_ place, the way he always did because he knew it drove Elijah crazy. He tried, though, and tonight it was enough just to be held, to be loved even if it was only physical.

Dom prepared him with gentle fingers until Elijah was gritting his teeth on a scream, wanting Dom the way he usually was, all haste and burn and a little bit rough. He pulled Dom close and wrapped his legs around Dom’s body, showing Dom what he needed with actions rather than words. Their coupling after that was frantic and hard, Dom yielding easily when Elijah demanded more than gentleness and care.

Afterwards, Elijah didn’t know what to say. He’d tilted his head back for the kiss that Dom always placed in the hollow of his throat after lovemaking, and when it didn’t come, all of the uncertainty and fear came back full strength to haunt him.

Dom seemed to sense his withdrawal, and held him in a gentle embrace, not asking for anything else. “You miss him,” he said at last, quietly, and Elijah’s eyes were filling with tears almost as soon as he’d registered the words.

“Yes,” he answered softly, his head against Dom’s chest, this stranger with the same feel and the same smell as his lover. He wanted Dom so badly it hurt, wanted to be held and soothed and cherished, and it was a strange feeling, to long so desperately for something that was right beside him.

“I’m sorry,” Dom murmured, and his hand rubbed Elijah’s back, almost the way _his_ Dom’s would when Elijah was upset.

Elijah didn’t know what else to say. Everything was so strange, his world turned upside down, and he ached from more than lovemaking, felt ripped apart inside with no idea of how to fix it.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, and after a few seconds Dom kissed the top of his head, and drew him a little closer. Elijah looked up, meeting Dom’s eyes. Dom smiled a little crookedly at him, a little sadly, and his lips met Elijah’s in a less-than-awkward kiss.

“I fell in love with you once, didn’t I?” he said quietly. “Maybe I will again.”


End file.
